I actually really like Smoking Mirror as a chassis for Mictilan, you can get quite a big bless on him, even if he's not a big bruiser. His new paths only cost 20p, so you can easily dip into whichever bless you want.
The big issue with Mictlan sacred (from my point of view), is that they have quite low survability. the jaguar only as the first form with a length 2 and 11 attack, and afterward length 0, with only 11 def, and even with barkskin you still only have around 10 prot, and human hp (I mean you could stack lots of undying, but even undying 5, giving 10 HP, is allowing for taking 1 more hit from a human, but that's just giving them 1 or 2 more rounds of combats (and afflictions probably, I don't know if the undying HP help in their calcul), which is not enough to have them survive, meaning you get attrition. Trying to get them to survive to protection bless (Hard skin) doesn't seems too good to me, since as you said you can already put a barkskin up, and since it only reach 10 anyways, and the 2nd form of the jaguar as 5 natural armor, it means you're getting 2-3 protection on the first form, and 0 on the second, so not exactly worth it. Trying to get them to survive through pure regen "didn't work well" as @wolfhh4926 said, and it is pretty logical, since with +2hp per round, it would necessitate that you survive 5 turn to regen a 10 dmg post calulation hit, which is quite unlikely. Adding undying might prelong the situation a little bit, but you are investing something like 10 bless points to survive 1-3 more round, against basic human ennemies, and that doesn't seems worth it either. Then one could try to make them survivable by getting repels, but a length 2 that becomes a length 0 isn't really the most efficient unit to repel, mainly because that means you are defenceless against a lot of weapons and as soon as you transform, so that doesn't seem like the play. The last one left is to try to defence stack, and yes, more than just 1 or 2 defence might be necessary to make them survivable, but then again, there are multiple ways to do this. First, for a "not boring build, very awake build" : Oracle, Awake, 9water 7glamour ,quickness here not only gets you the first 2 points, it also makes you even more killy, by quite a lot, and with the very low encumbrance you also know that probably won't be an issue too, then you can get displacement, giving you now a total of 7 more defence, which means your jaguar are now like if they were at 18 defence, so a lot, lot more survivable, all the while the are more killy than with a regen bless ! And you still have a point left to use, so probably heroism, unless you want to go cold scale, where you could take winter's gift for the mouvement. The Issue is that the awake do cost a lot in scale, and you have to go dom7, order0, sloth2, cold1/heat3,growth0, misfortune1, magic1, or an addaptation of that to your taste. Secondly, for a ""not too boring build, very sleepy build" : you can get the exact same bless, but since the previous build had 16 points left, you get 166 points, so 4 scales to improve if you want, or 1scale and get 4 magic point in any other path, that can afford you 3 more bless points. It opens things like enchanted blood, blood surge, inspirational presence, righteous wrath, unbreakable, some resistance if you want to be casting spells later, undying, or just 1 more defence and 1 more heroism. Then come the "Really boring rainbow emprisonned" : smoking mirror, Emprisonned, 4fire, air & blood, 3 for everything else. It can afford 5 defence skill, blur, swiftness, 3 heroism and blood surge, for a result of around +8~10 effective def, witch is definitively enought. It doesn't sacrifice scales either, as you can go : dom7, order1, sloth1, heat0/heat2, growth1, luck0, magic1. Obviously, that can be tried with other pretenders. But obvioulsy, there are other ways to increase troops surviability. You can try for Awe, and as the only non-human chassis with glamour, it can only fall on the Oracle again but it do have 2 quite different variants : The "Old Build Switched" : Oracle, Awake, 2Fire, 9Water, 6Glamour, quickness & Awe, were you are hoping that the killiness of quickness and it's defence help a bit, but where awe become the primary defence mechanism. You do still get dom7, order0, sloth2, cold1/heat3,growth0, misfortune1, magic1. You can try puttin it to dormant too, and it as roughtly the same effect, if not for the fact that you can't afford 4 scales since you only have 8 points left here, and that going further into fire for bless points doesn't cost that much. The "Moral Superiority Build" : Oracle, Awake, 3Fire, 5Water, 7Glamour, Awe & Dread, were you demoralize the ennemy with dread, renforcing the effect of Awe for the rest of the battle and betting on an early rout. It's not even that costly scales-wise : dom8, order0, sloth1, cold1/heat3,growth0, luck0, magic1. Again, same idea with the fact that it can be put to Dormant. And lastly, because this is starting to be very long, and to change a bit I tried doing something with a Titan. He's not good at expension, but oh well... Fire Time! The "Fire Titan Build" : Teotl of War, Awake, 6Fire, 4Nature, 4Blood, Heat aura, Fire Shield, Blood Surge. Here the point is that you hope you're fighting a nation that doesn't have fire resistance, as muspelheim and abyssia would probably laught at your bless, but otherwise, the strategy is to have ennemies be repelled by the Fire shield, and get them tired with the heat, while still keeping some buffs for cheap with the blood surge. Scales-wise : dom6, order0, sloth1, heat3 ,growth0, luck0, magic1. Same as always, an Dormant version is available, altough getting more bless points might be quite costly. I hope you will tell me what you prefer the most and your other thought on it, I personnally never played Mictland for more than a short test, and I still have too many other games cooking to start one for now, but I will gladly watch the redif of the live (I'm euro so I can't quite get it, but I tend to prefer watching rediffusions anyways).
Thanks for these idea. I think even with glamour + quickness I'd still find Mictlan too uphill for my tastes, but I agree that seems like a better combo than trying for regen and blood stuff.
I have really come to fear length 0 weapons and I really feel it here. Where is our +weapon size buff!? I haven't played around with the water weapon blesses, I'll see if I can get a test or two in with them. Thanks for the ideas here!
Not sure where you are getting those protection numbers for Barkskin Barkskin takes 5 nat prot up to 10, so that’s +5 not + 0. And the stacking loss on the first form should be -1 or 0, so +6 or 7. You’ll still get attrition, but Barkskin is not working like you are describing
@@markmittelbach7975 on the 1st form you have armor, so you don't get the full +5, and on the second form, you already have 5 base natural protection, so if you take the bless you are at 10, so you only get 1 natural protection.
I tried Mictlan when I knew a lot less about the game than I do today, to try and learn blood. It didn't work well. I struggled to expand until I met another nation, and then sort of just folded over. I found that reegen was...less amazing on Jaguar warriors then one might expect. Both forms are are killy, but both forms die so quick, and both the warrior and jaguar form have small pools of hp compared to non-humans. Still a lot of attrition on my jaguar warriors, and they build up afflictions fast. Its still probably a really good pick, just not as great as with Rus or giant nations. Thanks for trying Mictlan, I'm excited to see how it goes for you. I just couldn't get them to work, and would love to see how to actually bring it all together.
@@BabelBuilder (I’ll just copy my other comment lol) I always do an imprisoned rainbow, usually with the smoking mirror cause he’s cool, and a diverse set of non-incarnate blesses. Some attack, some defense, swiftness, blur, a bunch of undying, enchanted blood, and blood surge work well for me. I’ll sometimes trade a point of undying for a point of undead leadership so all my priests can move a lot of demons.
I also saw somebody use the spear/javelin warriors for expansion and it worked really well, so I tried it myself and was very pleased with the results. I just find the slingers end up killing more of my sacreds than the indys, so having the javelin guys on fire and keep distance pairs really well with the eagles warriors, drawing the enemies forward so my eagles have a clear path to the enemy commanders.
I found that jaguars are pretty good as a fire and forget missiles with the a killy bless, if you find a lot of nature sites. Not making a bless specialty for the murder kitties, but still. Had a very interesting (funny) siege happen where my moon priests cast ethereal on them and they completely mauled the back line of the opponent. Still lost because I was against tir na nog, but still funny
After watching the video, it feels like it makws the most sense to go for 'killy' blesses over trying to make your sacreds more survivible. Gonna start as Mictlan next and see for myself. 100 hours in the game so far and i haven't even left early age. Kicking myself for not trying with Dom 4 back in the day.
Blunt in damage in general I can see places where it is good. I think slings are actually better because they are blunt, as the chance of hitting the head makes them an actual threat in the early age where there are a lot of hatless enemies who can get taken out. Slings aren't amazing but they would be worse if they were not blunt. Rain of Stones gets a bit of this bonus too. Two handed clubs and mauls, especially on larger units, have decent chances of hitting the head and they can do real damage to things that have a lot of hp or protection; they have to get lucky to get that hit but that hit kills or does nasty afflictions, they are also good against inanimates and statues. The one handed mace, that just stinks and only taken if there isn't another option.
Sorry Mr. Bable sir, but I must be "that guy". For reasons beyond comprehension, this one drives me nuts. I won't be able to make it thru the live stream. There is no "I" in jaguars. It is not pronounced Jag-wires. You can use Jag-wars or the British Jag-u-ars. Either are acceptable. Please take this in the spirit it's intended. I am rarely "that guy", Good luck. Make Mictlan proud! PS I'm well aware I'm going to get hammered for this, but it's something I had to do.
The other pro of the most basic Mictlan warriors is that their map move is higher than any of your other non-sacred troops, so they can often keep up moving two tiles with your sacreds while all your other troops top out at one tile per turn.
@@BabelBuilder Not fully commiting to blood must have been my mistake as on all my games with them I tried going for national summons in general as I like the aztec theme they all have but I wasn't able to get a good start. In fact I ignored all the units you recommended and instead focused on massing a variety of warriors and moon warriors for my blessed units (didn't get too far doing that). I have tried to implement your strategies today and jaguar warriors with a hell bless got me off to a good start but I feel I could have done better with my pretender (tried doing an improsoned rainbow mage to maximise on the bless)
I like that you mention Stygian Flesh since I think it's not bad. Magic weapons bless is more expensive than ever and invulnerability is the only thing that tends to prevent high arrow attrition on all our unarmored sacred units. I think invulnerability would better than fateweaving on the pretender you mention at 56:00, it's cheaper and it lets your guys live long enough to use vampiric weapons. If you run into nations with magic weapons, you can always cast barkskin instead, and not needing a bunch of mages to cast barkskin is otherwise nice. I did a test game with it, and it seemed to work ok, 15 protection is so much more than 7, though they rack up afflictions like nothing else. Just learned about the interaction between fateweving and vampiric weapons, very cool, and about how vampiric weapons is +-DRN, very uncool! Also worth noting that the god selected is more expensive than a fountain of blood with the same paths, though there are drawbacks to the fountain; immobile pre-teleport, bad event tied to it, less flavorful, no bringer of fortune/fortune teller/grand communicant. You mention how important blood is for blessings, but another reason to take blood on a Mictlan or Xibalba pretender is to get more Ozies per cast of rain of jaguars in the mid-late game. Just a thought, maybe worth remembering that the higher you are in blood the more ozies you get, 14 at 6, 15 at 7, 16 at 8. I like quickness + vitriol weapons + 4x undying on an awake geyser pretender. Attrition is high but they close the distance with archers quickly, 6x7ap attacks is a lot +-DRN and can destroy armor if we're afraid of that, very rare to be able to resist it. You could also scales expand while having a dormant titan if you can make a bless work for both the titan and your sacreds, fortitude + regen + blood surge might work, cheese expansion with eagle warriors on hold attack rear and javelin warriors to distract the enemy advancing, but it takes more effort than "jaguar warriors, go!" Otherwise, death ball if you need to, avoid provinces filled with horse tribe or other archer blobs until you can blitz them with enough sacreds. Don't worry too much about trashing your scales more, you'll have someone else's scales in most of your lands if all goes according to plan, just make sure you can recruit jaguar warriors off your capital equal to your dominion score. Hit alteration 4 and do a full mage pull and kill someone with wooden warriors and body ethereal. Preferably avoid nations with lots of archers, fire and foul vapors (though I've never seen the ai cast foul vapors). Hope that helps! Good misfortune (because you are playing Mictlan)!
In all my testing afflictions were a constant problem. I wonder if it would be worth it to take unbreakable or recuperation? Maybe we just accept it, as they are recruit anywhere sacreds.
@@BabelBuilder Yeah, this is why I prefer quickness, they tend to die if they get hit too hard instead of accumulating afflictions. Doesn't sound better but when you have 4 afflictions you may as well be dead, instead you are costing upkeep. It's possible though! At that point I might just take a recuperating titan, invulnerability means they don't need to cast iron skin sometimes, which is worse than it's ever been. Plus, blood surge and attack skill, length 3 weapon on the teotl of war, could be a nice repel/hellpower sc, sacreds that always hit. There's a ton of options though for Mictlan. Makes them really nice when you know what you're up against, you can take what you want to some extent. The AI though will always bungle the dom spread and die in the first year, so they appear weak in single player.
9:00 weapon length seems to be super-critical and make spears generally better than other options. Obviously it doesn't trump just being better but I'd definitely pick it over slightly higher damage most of the time (much higher damage is obviously a different matter).
Spears are really modelled well as an easy to use weapon for mass recruits, but also good in certain formations weapon. I have come to really like the weapon length system and what it brings to combat!
And I always do an imprisoned rainbow, usually with the smoking mirror cause he’s cool, and a diverse set of non-incarnate blesses. Some attack, some defense, swiftness, blur, a bunch of undying, enchanted blood, and blood surge work well for me. I’ll sometimes trade a point of undying for a point of undead leadership so all my priests can move a lot of demons.
I like bloody mother and cranking resilience, strong vitae and recuperation. Helps with attrition a lot, makes ya lads much more meaty. Works very well if you can manage to get Mass barkskin or Army of Iron. Expensive though, of course. Could also do blood vengeance instead of recuperation if you just want to slaughter all opposition. Another time I went fiery explosion and just pumped a trillion eagle warriors. that was funny but not actually good for winning. Mictlan is fun and has a lot of options with three nice sacreds. I look forward to friday.
Really a nation of extremes, I can see why the AI sucks with it. Would an awake researcher or mage help to shoot towards some of those larger summons or spells? Honestly tough to see an easy synergy
@@BabelBuilder I want to see a challenge game where you only research Blood magic (at least until it runs out). Don't think I want to play that though ;)
The grand communion is kind off a waste of time... its one more gem of overcast for each astral magic lvl but wasting mage turn wasting research and making all of them move back to lab to use it (potentially wasting more than one turn) makes it more efficient to just use gems for overcast sadly
13:00 Can't see any reason to recruit the Sun Warrior. *Maybe* if you're up against fire but I'd probably still rather try to gank the back line. Feels like they forgot to pick up fire shield when they're blessed.
I went for Scales/imprisoned heresy. Used the blood .5 heal and undying*4, bloodlust blur str etc on the blood fountain Dom8/O1P2/H1/G1/L0/M1 S5G4D4B5. Expand uses the moon/sun warriors (same speed so stack then moon ones go underground) + the spear/sling chaff. Sun good with fire evo, but I found hard way barkskin when evolving to non cap elites and ozys can lose to fire with the demands on the mages but making economy/mages work is the fun.
@@BabelBuilder Yes agreed but I think only evolve to non cap when Alt4 and that competes with blood/construction for priority domain spread to benefit from scales. I recall I had problems with bleed of domain into seas but economy exploded with spread. Dom8 too much and air/swiftness might have been better than glam/blur - no right answer.
Poison resistant bless seems very attractive -those poison clouds seem very attractive Even I wouldn't be trying to push a lot of Dominion everywhere (although it might be interesting to try to see if that's possible I just can't see it being worthwhile) so we're definitely into 'hellbless' territory. Thrones still work for you I think?
55:00 I want to pick one of the unique interesting Titans but I suspect the little guy is just better. I like Righteous wrath a lot here with all those puny human sacreds but it still means you're taking losses which can't be good (..unless it triggers when they change form?). I want to go Dormant with one Incarnate entry (essentially the Dormant is paying for the Incarnate feature though I don't know if that actually adds up) I like Imprisoned but I don't think it fits your stream games setup which are pretty short games. I think Vampiric Weapons just aren't worth the cost. They definitely need tweaking. REMEMBER to look at the mercenaries for expansion
Mictlan is just terrible in comparison with most other EA nations and I never found anything that made me feel that I was in a naturally strong position.
